


Rick Fucking Grimes and Merle Fucking Dixon

by ItCouldAllBeForNothingTommorow



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Best Friends, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-typical Cursing, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, First Love, M/M, Merle Dixon-centric, Merle's Got A Heart, Merle's complicated, Merle-centric, background canon relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 10:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13611630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItCouldAllBeForNothingTommorow/pseuds/ItCouldAllBeForNothingTommorow
Summary: Merle and Rick grew up together and were best friends until the Dixon's moved away.  Merle remembers the friendship and what came after.  Set per-series up to season 1 episode 2.





	Rick Fucking Grimes and Merle Fucking Dixon

Rick Fucking Grimes was one of the only people that Merle can claim who wasn’t kin to have ever gone out of their way to help him. One of the only people he could honestly say had really given a damn about him. 

They went to school together, little shits still learning their alphabet and became friends. Rick cared about Merle no matter how much others disapproved, including his own parents. It wasn’t until about the fourth grade that Rick’s parents accepted that Merle was going to be a part of their son’s life. They weren’t happy about it but they stopped disapproving so much and let Rick bring him around outside of school more. Which was good since home wasn’t exactly always the best place to be and being with Rick was always better than being home.

They were friends. The best of friends. But as they had been growing up Merle started looking at Rick and wanting more than friendship.

Rick Grimes was the first guy Merle ever had a crush on. He was the only guy Merle ever let himself kiss. Merle would never forget that kiss. Not because it was his first. Not because it was the only time he let another man’s lips touch his. No. He’d remember that kiss forever because it had been a goodbye kiss and Rick had kissed him back.

Merle’s Momma had died, taking their house with her and so his Pa decided they had no reason to stay in the only town Merle’s ever known. They were moving on to god only knew where. Merle’s Pa had told them that morning that they had to pack what little they had as their uncle would be their by noon and they’d been going. It was the first Merle was hearing about it. He tried to argue with his Pa but it was a done deal. There was nothing Merle could do to change it so he ran. They were leaving and he couldn’t leave without seeing Rick. His own heart wouldn’t be able to take it and neither would Rick’s. He couldn’t put Rick through Merle just disappearing with no answers left behind. So he ran all the way from the motel on the edge of town where they were staying to the Grimes’ house without stopping.

Rick answered the door all smiles and happiness. It didn’t last long. As Merle shared the news with Rick and they tried to process it there were tears from the both of them. Merle wasn’t ashamed of it either. Not at the time and not late on either. He stayed with Rick for as long as he could but they were going and putting it off wouldn’t change that. It would just earn Merle a beating.

When the time came to leave, when they couldn’t put it off anymore Merle decided to be reckless because the same as his heart couldn’t bare leaving without saying goodbye, he didn’t think he could go on living with wondering with no chance of ever finding out. He’d been wondering about it for years but it was always the fear of losing Rick that held him back. Now that he was going to loose Rick anyway all he could think was why the hell not. So as Rick gave him one last hug, one last goodbye, Merle turned his head and kissed his best friend. 

He’d kissed Rick and Rick kissed him back. It was amazing. Not the kiss itself. The kiss itself was just a kiss but that it was Rick and that Rick kissed him back made it amazing. He’d feared the worse and gotten the best. That kiss was the best damn kiss of Merle’s life and he hadn’t exactly been chase since then. He’d been smiling through most of it though when they broke it and pulled back some from each other Rick was crying.

“Why’d you have to do that,” Rick asked him angrily with his face all scrunched in on himself. He was still clinging to Merle tightly though as Merle knew he wasn’t actually made about the kiss. “Why’d you have to do it now that you’re leaving?”

Merle laughed self deprecatingly but happy. He rested his forehead against Rick’s. “Had to know what it’d be like,” he confessed. Then the old grandfather clock in the hall chimed a quarter hour to noon and Merle had to let Rick go. He had to run again, this time away from Rick.

In later years Merle convinced himself it had all been for the best. He told himself that if he’d stuck around he’d only have found a way to ruin what he had with Rick the way same way he ruined everything else. He couldn’t even do right by his brother after all and Daryl was blood. What hope would there have been that he’d make things work with Rick into the angst of teen hood. He was sure it all would have fallen apart. He’d have been lucky if they made it on until Rick left for college and left him behind. Rick and their friendship was the one good unspoiled thing in his life he had to look back on so he told himself that their Pa taking them away was the best thing the man ever did for him. It didn’t stop him wondering though if maybe he’d have turned out better if he’d gotten to keep Rick in his life. He dreamed about what it would have been like if he’d gotten to stay. Maybe Rick would have been able to make sure, somehow, that Merle didn’t managed to fuck things up. He thought about Rick a lot. Sometimes he wondered if he built up the Rick in his head. Put him on a pedestal. But then he’d remember and he thought that no, Rick really was just that good a friend and a person.

It was some years after the military when Merle was traveling with Daryl that they found themselves near their old hometown. On an impulse Merle made the turn and headed towards town. Daryl didn’t get why Merle wanted to go back. Merle shrugged it off as nostalgia and Daryl went along with it cause he generally did as Merle said. It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to be besides, so why the hell not.

They went to the local bar after driving around for a bit. No one had recognized them. No one remembered them. Dixon was a forgotten name but when Merle asked if the Grimes family still lived on 2nd Street, the Grimes were remembered.

Merle was about learned at least some of what had happened to his friend after he left from an outsiders opinion. He wasn’t surprised to learn that Rick Fucking Grimes graduated from their small town high school and headed off to college. He was surprised to hear it hadn’t all been sunshine and roses and picket fences like he’d wanted for his once friend as Mr and Mrs Grimes had died in a car wreck while Rick was away for his first semester of college. It was harder than he might have thought it would be to hear it. Harder still for Merle to imagine. For the first time in many years Merle wondered if maybe Rick’s life would have been better if he’d still had Merle in his live. He couldn’t help imagining Rick having to go through that and if turned over and over in his head. He hoped Rick hadn’t been alone. He knew Rick probably hadn’t been but all Merle could see in his head was Rick as he’d left him. Just a little shit with nothing but his mom and dad and Merle who was running off out of his life standing there alone completely when his mom and dad left him too.

The bar crowd went on about it a bit, the accident. Apparently it had been pretty bad. There deaths weren’t fast or painless and the whole town knew it which mean Rick couldn’t be ignorant of it either. Merle’s voice was a bit thicker than he would have liked when he raised the question as to ask whatever came of their boy, of Rick. He was told Rick had sold the house then headed back with “the Walsh boy” to finished out school and now they worked in law enforcement as they planned somewhere near Atlanta. 

“The Walsh boy” had gotten Merle’s attention. He didn’t remember any Walsh and certainly none who’d known Rick. When he confessed to know remembering the guy he got to here all about “the Walsh boy” a small town football hero, a ladies man, and apparently the Grimes boy’s best friend always with each other and close as brothers. He couldn’t help but wonder about this guy who from the sound of it had taken Merle’s place. And even though the fellas at the bar went on a bit about Walsh’s exploits with the ladies Merle couldn’t help but wonder if Walsh had ever kiss Rick like Merle had and if he had, did Rick kiss him back? Wondering about it ate at Merle putting him in a fowl mood that night. It kept eating at him for years after. Snuck up on him at the weirdest times. When something he saw or did reminded him of Rick thoughts of Walsh would follow on right after, unwanted but tagging along anyway. 

More years went by and Merle was starting to be more old then he was young. His life became even more fucked up and pathetic. He dragged Daryl along with him all the way down as he became more and more indulgent with his drug habit and fell into worse things because of it. There had finally been enough years and other things between then and now that he’d all but forgotten to remember Rick… until the world went to shit with the dead learning to walk again and Merle ended up in a camp outside of Atlanta with a group of survivors that included a cop called Walsh who wore a #22 necklace, a widow who still bore a ring, and her kid who’s name was Carl Grimes who said his Daddy was dead.

Merle wanted to ask. He wanted to know. Except at the same time he couldn’t bare to face it. As long as he didn’t know for sure he could go on pretending Rick was alive out there somewhere, that this was a different Walsh who’d had a different friend named Grimes who’d had a family but was now dead. Dead how? Dead when? Merle wanted to know but he couldn’t bare to find out with certainty. Just thinking about it and imagining was hard enough.

As time went on, the burned of the possibility and living with temptation and strain of having the sources to possible answer right in front of him brought forward the worse possible version of himself. He was angry. He was brash. He was quick to anger. He threw around hate and slurs like he was a part of a parade throwing out candy to eager hands. He also started taking bigger risks when it came to partaking from his stash. The drugs had never brought out Merle’s best behavior and they only helped to make him more prone to doing things that just weren’t smart. Like getting high on a run into the city. It was a bad idea, he knew it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care so long as Daryl wasn’t there counting on Merle to have his back.

So he’d made a mistake but the rest of the group trying to tell him off was a bigger one. Merle always was for picking fights and the idea of putting these people in their place, pushin’ them down so he could stand on top appealed to him too much in that moment to deny the impulse. Why the hell not. Acting on impulse was pretty much Merle’s modus operandi at this point. So Merle turned on them only to have some bastard come from behind once he had them all good and cowed. He went down but he was ready to get back up. He was ready for a fight but when he turned on the bastard he was just staring at Merle looking confused and ridiculous as shit in that fucking uniform.

“Merle,” the man said sounding just as confused as he looked.

Merle hesitated. Uneasy in a situation he didn’t understand. He didn’t get why this man was looking at him the way he was. He was ready to make a snarky comment when something started ringing in his head past the drugs and the anger and the fight. He knew this guy, he just couldn’t remember how. He squinted as he took in the face and tried to figure it out. When he thought he had it, he couldn’t believe it was possible.

Merle’s body started going slack of its own violation as he stared. “Rick,” he asked really not about to believe it.

The man’s face scrunched in on itself. “What the hell Merle,” he reprimanded.

Merle had to laugh. He laughed so hard he fell down on his ass. It had been such a long time and the years had changed them but Merle knew that disapproving tone and the scrunch of that like he knew the sound of his own voice.

“Rick Fucking Grimes,” Merle said with a beaming smile that quickly shimmered down to a flirty smirk while his eyes still twinkled with joy. “It’s been awhile.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far please leave a comment or kudos.
> 
>  
> 
> I love Merle and I really like Rick/Merle but it’s not exactly a ship that has a lot going on. My brain has been focused recently on pairing Rick with people I don’t usually get to see him paired with. I’ve had a Jenner/Rick idea bouncing around in my head for a bit. I thought if I’d take a break from my other story to write anything it would be that. But then this came into my head today and I just loved it so here we are. 
> 
> I know it isn’t great or a lot but it’s what I could get done in the time I had and it made me really happy and my hope is it might make someone else happy too. If anyone is interested in adopting the idea and explaining the history here or using this as a backstory for a series rewrite or a backstory for smutt you have my permission to do so. All I ask is if you could please leave a comment to let me know about it so I can check it out and please mention where the inspiration came from.
> 
> Personally I can see things going a lot of ways from here with many different shipping options. There is straight up Merle/Rick where Merle would make it off the roof and be there for Rick through all the canon hard times in season 1 and 2. It would give a reason to put Merle through a redemption arc and show a different side of him in providing comfort to Rick’s hurts and giving support and give a reason to see him being competent and getting shit done. Or you could go more real and have these two dealing with the very different men they grew up to be and seeing if they still work together and of course Merle’s drug habit.
> 
> I know there is some Merle/Rick/Shane out there and this would probably be a really good set up for that. Merle could be suspicious and jealous of Shane and Rick’s history. Shane could be jealous when he finds out that Merle got to kiss Rick and Shane never had the balls to do it himself and worries about loosing Rick to Merle. Maybe their angst and competitiveness over Rick leads to a kind of rival, hate sex kind of sexual tension with Rick getting a cosy spot in the middle?
> 
> Or Merle/Rick/Daryl where it turns out Daryl remembers his brother’s friend well and used to have a crush on Rick. Maybe Daryl’s old crush starts developing into something more not knowing about Merle’s feeling and the position that’s going to put them in? Maybe he does know Merle’s feeling but can’t help himself? Lot of options there depending on how you want to play it between Daryl and Merle and how comfortable they would be sharing and with their own sexuality.
> 
> Just a lot of options for this story but sadly I don’t have the time to invest them. Maybe if enough people leave support I would but for now, this is all the time I have to give to it :(


End file.
